


Pinky and The Brain

by sirius



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band), NewS (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:35:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirius/pseuds/sirius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic was written in 2007 and contains explicit sexual content.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Pinky and The Brain

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written in 2007 and contains explicit sexual content.

_They're Pinky and The Brain  
Yes, Pinky and The Brain  
One is a genius  
The other's insane. _

“Ehh? Isn't it Kato-kun?”

Rewind five minutes. Shige is happily browsing through the store, ignoring everybody around him, everybody around him ignoring him right back. It's good. He needs quiet and calm to decide what to have for dinner. He weighs the two options in his hands, considering. Maybe both. Both would be good. He's hungry. He's happy.

Fast forward five minutes. Shige looks up. It can't be. It _can't_ be. It is. 

“Akanishi-kun,” he says. “Er-”

“Oh, good choice,” Jin says, looking at the food in Shige's hands. Shige feels he should make an excuse, he's trying to choose between the dinners, he's not going to buy both – but then he remembers how much Jin eats and doesn't bother. He just nods.

“Are you here for dinner too?”

“Yeah,” Jin says. “Well, that's what I came for. But I got side-tracked. I wish they'd stop moving everything around all the time. I can't find anything.”

Shige looks at Jin's full basket. “You found a lot, though.”

“Well, yeah,” Jin admits, rifling. “But nothing for dinner.”

Shige is skeptical. “There's plenty of food there.”

Jin blinks. “Those are _snacks._ ”

“Oh,” Shige says. “Are you going out with Pi tonight?” _That has to be for two people_.

“No,” Jin says, cheerfully. “I'm all alone. Unless you want to hang out?”

“Ahh, no, sorry, I have plans.”

 

As he leaves the store, he realises that he doesn't have plans, at all. He just wants some time on his own. Besides, Jin makes him nervous. They're just very different people. Jin is sort of like an excited puppy and Shige's an old, weary bloodhound. Or something. He feels a bit bad, though. Jin's friendly enough and Shige's lonely at the moment. 

He gets home and eats his dinner quietly, flicking on the television and channel-hopping until he feels totally depressed. Wishing he'd taken Jin up on his offer, he goes to bed, sleep preferable to reality television.

In his sleep, he dreams in wispy images. The sex he isn't having, hasn't been having for god only knows how long. The feel of hips in his hands, looking up at someone, sweat dripping down from their face onto-

the alarm goes off.

 

Shige stills feels bad the next morning. He eats breakfast and when that doesn't make him feel less guilty, he sends Jin a quick message.

 

_To: Akanishi Jin  
From: Shigeaki Kato_

_Want to hang out today?_

_Shige._

_To: Shigeaki Kato  
From: Akanishi Jin_

_Only if I can choose where we go~~ ♥_

_Jin._

Dangerous, Shige thinks. Jin could want to go anywhere. He weighs up the risk as he gets dressed: on the one hand, unpredictability is exciting. Koyama is always telling him that he's too cautious, doesn't have enough fun. On the other hand, Jin isn't subtle and there's always the chance that the press will catch them both doing something embarrassing or indecent or worst, _both_. There've been plenty of trips Shige's regretted saying 'no' to, though, and he resigns himself to the fact that if he refuses, he'll feel both guilty and curious. And he's not sure he can cope with both of those at once.

_To: Akanishi Jin  
From: Shigeaki Kato_

_Okay. It is legal, right?_

_Shige._

 

He meets Jin at the train station, doesn't initially recognise him. That's a good sign for the day to come. Jin's wearing dark clothes, a cap over his face, his hair in a ponytail. Casual and understated. Only his eyes are mischievous and excited and Shige is worried about what's in store. He can't predict Jin. Even Yamapi can't do that. They take the Keiyo line and Jin tells him they're getting off at Maihama. Shige smiles to himself. Disneyland, then. That's not too bad. There'll be thousands of people and they won't stand out, at all. The chances of being spotted for very long are minimal. And besides, Shige hasn't been there for years, not since he was child. Despite himself, he's happy and nostalgic.

After they leave Maihama station, Jin leads Shige in the wrong direction. They're not going to Disneyland, after all, but DisneySea Park. Shige is skeptical. He's not been to Sea Park before, it opened after he stopped going. And Jin and water is hardly an _ideal_ combination. Just, Jin looks so enthused, it isn't like he can turn around and leave him there. Chewing on one nail, he looks at the information board to see what's in store for him. 

“Mysterious Island!” Jin says. “That sounds... _mysterious_!”

Shige doesn't like mysterious. He likes Certain, Sure, Logical. Mysterious is not good. 

“What's in it?” He says, adjusting his sunglasses. “Don't say-”

“Mysteries,” Jin says, grinning. “ _Mysteries_. Come on, where's your sense of adventure?”

“20,000 leagues under the sea?” Shige reads. 

“Wow, that's kind of far.”

“No, I mean-” He's pointing at some sort of adventure ride. 

“Well, if that's where your sense of adventure is, we'll have to dive down and get it.”

“I'm not sure I-”

“It looks fun! Come on, you get to go in a research submarine designed by Captain _Nemo_. How many chances to do that are you gonna get?”

“I'm not sure that I trust a submarine designed by an orange fish.”

“Not _that_ Nemo. Anyway, we need to go and get your sense of adventure.”

Shige looks into Jin's puppy eyes. He sighs. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

 

The ride isn't that bad. Shige has the urge to sit very close to Jin, the way he did with his parents as a kid. He's never done well with rides. It's the not knowing what's about to happen. But everything is colourful and shiny and the other children on the ride stare bravely out of the windows of the submarine. So Shige forces himself to join in. 

Jin is pointing at something spiky and vibrant, a look of complete fascination on his face. “I want one of those!”

“What is it?”

“I don't know.” Jin scrunches up his face. Shige presses his face closer to the window, trying not to stand on a toddler at his feet. “It's-”

“It's an anemone.” A kid, half Shige's height, mutters. He sounds disapproving. 

“I know,” Shige says. “It's an anenome,” he says, for Jin's benefit.

“What are you guys doing here?” The kid says. “You're a bit old, right?”

Jin looks horror-struck. “You're _never_ too old for Disneyland.”

The kid looks skeptical. The other kids are clinging to him, their wise and sarcastic older brother. Shige has a headache. 

“I've been thirty times,” the kid says. “My parents say it's educational.”

“It is!” Jin says. “I learnt about anamenes.”

“Anemones,” Shige corrects him. 

The kid looks at Shige with an expression that clearly says: _I feel so sorry for you_. 

“It's better than an art gallery or something,” Jin says. “You can't go 20,000 leagues under the sea in an art gallery.”

The kid looks at him and opens his mouth. Shige nudges him. 

“I know. I know. Just leave him be.”

The kid goes back to looking out of the window. “You can buy an anemone at the gift shop.”

Shige sighs. “Thank you _so_ much.”

 

After going 20,000 leagues under the sea, the two of them go to the centre of the Earth. The pretence gets easier with every ride, Shige is finding, as if Jin's joy is infectious. Jin is holding a stuffed anemone, bright green and overflowing. It's tickling Shige's arm from Jin's lap and he has to keep moving its spines away. The car is more fun, less claustrophobic, as they zoom over rocks and through caverns. Like a rollercoaster but not so fast that it makes Shige feel ill. He moves Jin's anemone away for the third time in ten minutes and points out a big purple tree.

“Why do you think that's there?”

Jin looks puzzled. “Are there purple trees in the Earth's core?”

“I don't think so,” Shige says. “Scientifically, it makes no sense.”

“Maybe we should do an experiment!”

“Jin-”

Jin addresses the car of people, all six of them, timid parents with rambunctious children. He presents the evidence for purple trees, most of which centres on phrases like 'so cool' and 'purple trees are better than other trees!' Unsurprisingly, the others all decide that purple trees definitely exist at the Earth's core. Jin falls short of collecting empirical data, questionnaires and so on – he doesn't have a notepad and Shige's not about to lend him some paper. But he's satisfied with his scientific study and Shige's not about to ruin that, either. 

They head over to the American waterfront for lunch, Jin choosing Cape Cod Cook-Off for the food. Shige suspects he just thinks the alliteration is funny, but when he asks Jin about that, he just gets blank look in response. They eat burgers and watch something involving Donald Duck that makes them both want to eat as fast as possible, indigestion preferable to the show.

“Are you enjoying it?” Jin asks, through food. 

Shige nods. It's not really his thing, but it's nice to do something pointless every once in a while. “It's fun,” he says. “I've not been since I was little.”

Jin nods. “Maybe we should go somewhere you want next time.”

Shige considers this. “That'd be cool,” he says. “Would you really want to go?”

“Yeah, sure!” Jin says, downing his Coke. “It'd be an experience. I haven't been in a library _ever_ ,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. Shige whacks him on the arm. 

“I'm going to kill someone if I have to listen to Donald Duck anymore. Let's head off.”

Jin wipes his hands on his jeans and grins, wicked. “It's no worse than Ryo's singing,” he says. 

Shige whacks him, harder. “I'll tell him you said that.”

“Tell him. I'm not afraid.”

Shige looks at the information board outside the restaurant and scoffs at Jin. “You're so afraid,” he says. “You'll blame someone else for saying it, just so he won't bite you in your sleep. Like a poisonous spider. Oh, God, you're going to want to go to the Arabian Coast, aren't you?”

“We have to go there!” Jin says. “It's the best bit!”

“I thought 20,000 leagues was the best bit.”

“No, that was the best bit _before_ , now the Arabian Coast is the best bit.”

 

The Arabian Coast is _not_ the best bit. Sindbad's Storybook Voyage is the most frightening thing Shige's seen since Ryo in sky blue PVC, and the advertised 'strong, uplifting music' isn't enough to stop him wanting to throw himself overboard and drown in the water. Jin's in his element, miniature boats evidently the most exciting thing in his small life. 

“Shush!” he says, when Shige nudges him. “I'm _learning_!”

“What can you possibly be learning?” Shige asks, exasperated. “He's taking about the compass of our hearts!”

“Exactly! I need to go _South_ , I think.”

“Jin, nobody has a compass in their heart!”

Jin looks at Shige and Shige detects something his eyes that he's seen before, in concerts and stuff, when Jin's playing it up for the camera. “The compass in my heart is telling me to go south,” he says, decisively. He looks into Shige's lap, a fleeting second, Shige just catches it. He spends the rest of the ride wondering whether he imagined it. The day is getting weirder and weirder.

 

The stupidest thing Shige does is let Jin walk past the Sea Park hotel. Once he catches a glimpse of the gondolas on the water and the Italian-style building, he's hooked. Jin's never been to Italy. He's always wanted to go to the floating city all the guidebooks talk about, and this hotel, it's almost the real thing. 

Of course, they can't have a gondola ride, not without staying at the hotel. And it's getting late, and Jin's eyes make themselves very big and Shige's sure that will fill his unpredictability meter to the top for the rest of the year. He'll never be called boring again! So he says 'yes', and Jin pays, and it's not all that bad really because the rooms are gorgeously plush and it's quiet, and he sits with a book in a chair whilst Jin has a shower and sings to himself. When Jin comes out, he's entranced and doesn't notice, not until Jin's beside him, looking at the book. Then, he jumps. 

“You snuck up on me,” he says accusingly. Jin smells warm and a bit of fruit. He can feel how hot his skin is, it looks good to the touch. Shige tries not to think on this too much. He had a habit of screwing his girlfriend after she'd had a shower. Something about her being all clean and fresh and warm. Koyama used to say he was just an anal freak with a fetish for hyper-cleanliness, but Shige knows that it was more about getting her dirty again. Jin's hair coils and drips water on his shoulders.

“What are you reading?” Jin says, not apologizing. As if he thinks sneaking is complimentary behaviour. He presses the corner of Shige's book down, leaving a damp thumb-print. 

“Nothing much,” Shige says. It's a book for university, something about cohabitation laws. Jin's eyes go a bit crossed.

“How do you manage studying and this?”

“Hmm,” Shige thinks. “I do my homework on the bus. Sometimes I get leave. It's a lot to balance but it works out okay, usually. I don't sleep very much.”

Jin nods. “I never went to university.”

“Do you regret it?”

Jin sits down on the floor, a heap of warm skin and white, fluffy towel. “No. Maybe. I'm not sure. I think I missed an opportunity. But I gained another one.”

“Maybe after this all ends, you can go back to studying.”

Jin scratches one shoulder absently. Shige watches him, looks at the curve of muscle over bone. Jin has strong shoulders, wide hips. Shige likes that about him, envies it. Shige's had girlfriends more well-built than he is. 

“Maybe,” he says, after some thought. It's awkward, so Shige doesn't know what to say. 

“I miss not knowing about things,” Jin says, eventually. “Everyone else knows stuff, and I don't know that much. About...history and things. But I get bored easily, so I'd have failed as a student, probably. I was always better at going out and doing stuff.”

Shige realises that he's afraid of going out and doing stuff. “You have life experience.”

“Yeah,” Jin says, brightening. “I do. And maybe that's right for me. Books are right for you.”

“I don't have life experience.”

“Sure you do. You've been in a band, seen some of the world, right? That's life experience.”

Shige thinks. “Mostly I'm scared of stuff. I do that stuff because I have to, and I enjoy it, but I'd never do it voluntarily. Someone would have to force me.”

“People have to force me to read books and go to plays,” Jin grins. “It's okay. People will always want to force you into stuff. That's life. Eventually, you get braver and do it on your own. Until then, your friends will always be there to make you do stuff you don't want to do.”

“Until you realise that they are things you want to do, after all?”

“Something like that.”

“Okay. Like DisneySea Park?”

“Sure! ...Crap, you really are going to take me to a library, aren't you?”

 

They do the gondola before dinner because it's getting dark and the gondoliers shove them on with obvious irritation. It's only them and they sit opposite one another, on huge wooden benches, and Shige thinks that Venice probably isn't at all like this. Jin enjoys it, giggling away and supping milkshake, keeps saying that he's seen Leonardo da Vinci, or Mozart, or anybody else he supposes lived in Venice at one time or another. Despite himself, Shige smiles, enjoying the breeze and the calm water and the view, however blasphemous Venetians would probably find it. Occasionally, he watches Jin, wondering what it is that allows him to enjoy himself so freely. He never worries that other people are staring, not because he's famous, because he's _loud_. 

It's odd, though, because Jin doesn't completely accept himself, Shige's noticed. He conceals the intelligence he does have, perhaps because it's easier, or because it's what people expect. Jin talks about Italy and Venice, and what he knows surprises Shige, who'd considered himself fairly knowledgeable. He had a good education in European history, but Jin knows all sorts about battles and marriages and scandals. It's sad, Shige thinks. That he prizes his intelligence and that Jin hides his. That Shige would be ashamed to be seen as stupid, and Jin would be ashamed to be seen as anything but. They really are a couple of idiots.

“Of course,” Jin is saying. “Gay relationships were more acceptable in those days.”

Shige stares at him. He's lost track of what Jin was saying. “What?”

“It was considered cool for men to kiss in gondolas.”

“You're making that up.”

Jin wriggles his eyebrows. “I just want you to feel comfortable in this gondola with me.”

“I don't want to kiss you!”

“Well, if you did, it'd be fine with both me and medieval Italian society.”

The gondoliers are both staring at them, which Shige thinks is probably a bit too dangerous for him to handle. “Jin, be quiet. You're making people stare.”

Jin is smirking. His eyebrows are still wiggling. Shige cracks up. 

The gondolier turns around, which is just as well because by the time they reach the street again, Shige and Jin are laughing so hard they're rocking the boat.

 

For dinner, they visit the Bellavista lounge, which Shige is really keen on. Jin notes that you can't stay longer than two hours and makes a face, instead plumping for Oceano, which looks like the the underside of a ship. Shige feels ill just looking at it, and decides on Silk Road Garden, a pretty Chinese. They toss a coin and Jin wins, but he decides on Chinese anyway. 

When they sit, Jin can't stop staring at the mural on the wall. Shige can see that the pictures extend all around the restaurant, and hopes that Jin doesn't want to go and sit at every table in order to see each one. 

“It's Marco Polo's journey, apparently,” he says, reading from the menu. 

“Oh,” Jin says. “Yeah. The artist isn't very good.”

“Jin!”

“What? He has two chins and about six ears, look! I'd be really pissed off if I did this huge journey and then everybody drew me like _that_. Imagine coming all the way from seeing Kublai Khan and then having people think you were that ugly!” 

Shige looks at him. “You know all about this stuff.”

Jin shrugs. “I liked history. I picked up the interesting stuff.”

“You should share it more. It's interesting.”

Jin chews one nail. “Yeah. I don't know. I don't think other people are as interested.”

“I am.”

“Yeah, you're just too nice to tell me to stop,” Jin grins. “You'd have someone hacking off your leg and you'd be like, 'I'd appreciate it if you stopped but if it's helping you relieve some tension, please ignore me!'” 

Shige laughs. In a horrible way, it's probably true. “How do you stand up for yourself without offending people? I can't do it.”

Jin smiles. “I don't mind if people get offended. That's up to them. Their reaction is something you can't control. You just have to be honest. And if that doesn't work, pretend to be innocent and cute. That sometimes works. Who gets mad with puppies for long, you know?”

“I just worry. About-”

“Everything.”

“Yeah.”

“There's one in every band,” Jin nods. “Johnny should set up some sort of spa treatment.”

“Or let us have girlfriends.”

Jin raises an eyebrow. Their food arrives and he starts eating, but doesn't stop talking. 

“Been a while?”

Shige grimaces. “Yeah. I miss being normal.”

“I've never been normal.”

“No, but...you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Jin says. “Yeah. Johnny should start branching out into girl bands or something.”

“I'd settle for just a girlfriend. Someone to take to plays and things.”

Jin pulls a face. “ _Plays_. Fuck. That sounds like a crummy date. I'd worry I was going to be tested afterwards. I don't think I'd have the energy for dinner. I'd pretty much be asleep.”

“Where do you take your girlfriends, then?” Shige says, poking Jin's hand with a fork as it makes its way towards his food. “I'm not Yamapi.”

“I dunno,” Jin says, narrowing his eyes at the fork print on his hand. “Disneyland.”

Shige stares at him. Jin takes that moment for himself and swipes a prawn.

 

They're outside the hotel room door and Jin is kissing Shige. Almost sideways on his mouth, with the underside of his jaw in his palm. Shige is standing, not really knowing what to do. Wanting to do, but not very sure of the doing. Or something.

Rewind five minutes. Full of prawns and meat and crackers and desert, oh, such desert – the two of them trundled slowly up to their room. They'd been drinking a bit and Shige was teasing Jin about the date comment, feeling bizarrely disappointed when Jin protested. It wasn't that he wanted to date Jin, or anything. He'd just missed the intoxicating feeling of getting to know someone, getting along with someone. That spark of potential. He wanted to be wanted, somehow. 

And when Jin said, “It was a good date, though, no? No plays, no boring museums, food, laughter...”

Shige joked, “Yeah, all it needs is a kiss and then it'd be perfect, right? Except that we're not-”

Fast forward five minutes, and Jin just took him up on it. Italian society would approve, after all. Or at least, that'd be Jin's excuse. And suddenly, definitions don't seem to matter so much. Jin's mouth is nice, his hand on Shige's jaw is nice. Not weird. Not repulsive. Nice. Shige realises how much he misses kissing, and whilst that's not the healthiest route into this-

he kisses him back. 

 

Once they've stopped kissing and they're in their hotel room, everything gets a bit edgier. Shige isn't sure what to do. It feels weird, to just go and watch television, or have a conversation about nothing. At the same time, it's not like the kissing should go any further, it's really been a step too far already, so he looks at Jin for help. 

“Lie down on the bed,” Jin says. Shige's not sure he likes the sound of that. A bit Mysterious.

“Um,” he says.

Jin looks at him. “We haven't got all night,” he says, grinning.

Shige lies down, tentatively. Jin strokes one of his feet. They look at each other. 

“What do you want,” Jin asks. “Not what you _should_ want. Not what you _think I want_. What do _you_ want?”

Shige swallows. He's about to shake his head and pass the decision back to Jin, because that's easier. And then he finds a voice, a small one. “Kiss me again.”

Jin smiles, leans over, and does. It's slow at first, exploratory, and then Shige's hands find their way to Jin's hair and it becomes anything but. Shige isn't sure what he's doing but he's thought about every little thing he's ever done (his mother swears when he was born that he carefully planned it so she wouldn't have to go into hospital just as the midwives changed shifts), and this feels better without the thinking, so he goes with it. And Jin's mouth is soft, and plump, and his lips are wet and parted and just the hint of tongue touches Shige's. It sends a line, fluid and hot, down to his groin. And the thought of a line between Jin's tongue and Shige's groin: that's enough to give him a semi. 

He can't vocalise this, of course. Not without a fierce colouring on his face. So with gentle force, he moves Jin's head down towards his groin. Jin quirks an eyebrow. “You gonna ask for that, then?”

Shige sets his mouth in a line. “I was trying to be delicate.”

“Fuck delicate,” Jin says. His fingers are in Shige's waistband. “I don't do delicate. I give great head. But you've got to ask or I won't.”

Shige sighs. He watches Jin's fingertips. “Alright,” he says. “Could you. Erm. Could you please suckmeoff?”

Jin smirks, undoes his button and fly. “Sure,” he says, effortless. “I'd love to.”

Shige covers his face with both hands. He's half embarrassed, half aroused. He doesn't want to watch Jin undressing him. He has a horrible feeling that Jin might laugh, fuck, what if he laughs, and-

Jin is nibbling the inside of his thigh. Nobody's ever done that before. Shige's about to say that he doesn't like it, opens his mouth, and Jin looks up with those big, dark eyes and Shige realises that actually, it's quite nice. Huh. Jin's hands are rubbing up his thighs and past his hips, making Shige's cock twitch and he grunts, needy, a little shy about it. And then, suddenly, as Jin sticks his tongue out and swipes it once across the head of his cock, he finds his confidence. He takes hold of Jin's chin and holds it still. 

“Now,” he says. It's one word, but it's effective. Jin's eyes flare, and before Shige can apologise, he nods and places his parted lips over Shige's cock. He sucks there, contentedly, for as long as he can get whines out of Shige, and then he slides downwards for the growls and the stutters. Jin is right: he does give great head. Wet and rough. Shige misses this. The connection as much as anything. The blind heat of knowing that it's somebody else's hand doing this to you, somebody else's lust, somebody else's feelings. 

“Jin,” he groans out. 

“Whu,” Jin says. 

Shige wrenches him off with a stifled moan and starts undoing his jeans. Jin seems confused but not about to put a stop to him, stepping out of them. 

“Underwear,” Shige says.

“You can do that, no?” Jin says, grinning. He's having fun. So Shige refuses to rise to the bait, takes them off quickly and cleanly. He's nervous, but he won't show it. He lies back and pulls Jin clumsily down with him. Jin remains on hands and knees between Shige's legs, letting him dictate the pace. There's kissing, kissing always makes things easier; Shige likes the kissing and likes the rise of heat in his belly. Jin lies down against him as they kiss, deepening and undulating, their bodies finally touching, full on each other, warm and hard. Shige moves first, tentative. Both of them moan, together. Jin slips a hand between them for friction. 

Jin nibbles as he pushes against Shige's cock, his own hand – he nibbles Shige's jaw and Shige finds that hot, the little slices of discomfort only making everything worse, and he slides his own hand down to join Jin's. They thrust awkwardly against each other, both as greedy as each other, against each other's hands. They curl their fingers almost in unison for greater sensation, and then Jin cries out and Shige grasps harder, moves faster, his head tilting back, intoxicated. Jin's mouth is by his ear and every time Shige strokes his cock, the 'thank you' rings out, loud and hot and hard. He tries to say 'yes, me too' but he can't quite get it out, can't even think straight. Jin's hand is tight, hard and wet and he can't last, can't possibly last, not with the weight of Jin on him and the heat between them and most of all, Jin's cries in his ear.

Shige lasts twenty seconds longer than Jin, if that, and by the time he yells, Jin's still keening. Their eyes meet, big and black and full, and Shige laughs out his breath as Jin collapses against him.

“Sorry,” Jin is saying. “Arms broken.”

“Mmff,” Shige says. “Ow.”

Jin says sorry, but he doesn't move.

 

Much later, Jin is breathing on Shige's shoulder. He's curled around him like a monkey or a koala or something Shige's seen on a nature programme at some point, completely shameless. Shige is awake, can hear the faint noise of people walking around outside, the night breeze. Everything is still in a way it's never still, his life. 

Jin sleeps completely without pause, conflict, thought. He just switches off. Shige thinks that he'd like to try that, sometime. As he turns over and yanks Jin's arm over his waist, he thinks about Marco Polo's six ears, and the purple trees in the Earth's core, and Donald Duck singing in a bar, and he realises that in one day, he and Jin have travelled 20,000 leagues under the sea.


End file.
